For all the time the 37 members of the Florida Constitution Revision Commission put into their unique task, you’d think they’d want to make sure their work didn’t go for naught.

Unfortunately, they took a page out of the Florida Legislature’s playbook from the past two years of blending good law with bad by rolling unrelated initiatives into “bundled” measures.

A constitution is a framework to safeguard fundamental rights that will stand the test of time, not be the kitchen sink repository of proposals addressing the latest trends that could disappear as quickly as the vapor from an electronic cigarette.

The commission, empaneled every 20 years to consider changes to Florida’s constitution, was appointed by state leaders and first met in March 2017. It’s held months of committee meetings, choosing among hundreds of suggestions. It’s held 15 public hearings across the state.

In the past week, the final 12 proposals were before the commission to decide which amendments should go to the ballot. While half were single-subject measures, the other six were “bundled,” totaling nearly 25 constitutional changes in all.

Not all final proposals advanced. One that should have didn’t. It would have stopped the practice of disenfranchising the growing throngs of party-unaffiliated voters through a write-in candidate election loophole.

Once again in 2018, a faux November write-in candidate with no intention to campaign or serve can close an August primary election to voters of only one political party. In a county like Collier where almost all candidates are Republicans, an election can be decided by 105,000 registered Republicans with 100,000 other voters essentially having no say who represents them. In other Florida counties, Democrats cheat registered voters in the same fashion.

The fault line

Commission members aren’t solely to blame for what they’ve done.

Had Florida lawmakers addressed many of these issues as they should have, there wouldn’t have been a decision before the constitutional panel on “bundling” multiple questions into a single Nov. 6 amendment.

Our point about legislative failure is consistent with where we stood in 2014 and 2016 on the medical marijuana constitutional amendment. Types of medication don’t belong in a constitution. This wouldn’t have needed a place in Florida’s if the Legislature and Congress had done their jobs to address the question legislatively.

Likewise, our objection to bundling is consistent with our opposing the Legislature’s passage in 2017 and 2018 of sweeping education bills containing good and bad measures that should have been voted on individually, as well as a 2018 tax-cut bill that included measures other than tax cuts.

On one hand, we’re pleased that voters in November can decide to phase out greyhound racing over the next two years. Yet that’s something the Legislature should have done by now.

While that’s a single-subject amendment, a confounding bundled one will ask voters to prohibit oil-gas drilling in state waters and outlaw vaping in the workplace under the guise of “clean water, clean air.”

If this needs constitutional protection, are these the two best ways to protect our air and water? Do coastal mangrove protections or inland hydraulic fracturing have greater environmental implications than whether someone vapes at work?

If such bundled measures don’t survive legal challenges — formidable groups are contemplating lawsuits — then much of the commission’s work will have been for naught. If these proposals remain, voters must decide whether to accept an unpalatable measure that doesn’t belong in the constitution to get a desirable proposal included.

Voters should consider rejecting any measure they can’t fully embrace, even if the commission’s work then was mostly for naught.